


Antumbra

by Nny11



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora (She-Ra) Mentioned, Angst, Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Complex Family Relationships, Disassociation, Emotional Manipulation, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Hurt, Magical Parasite, Mild Comfort at End, POV Catra (She-Ra), Panic Attacks, Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)'s A+ Parenting, Shadow Weaver's Magical Parasite is Terrifying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22177846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny11/pseuds/Nny11
Summary: "No gloating," Weaver wheezes, "How unlike you."Catra shrugs, running her tongue along the roof of her mouth and over her gums before responding, “People change.”Weaver scoffs, waxy blobs of her hair melt and drip onto her hands to be weakly flicked away like water. “People never change.”She bobs her head slightly. Fair enough. “People’s actions can change.”
Relationships: Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra), Catra & Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 75





	Antumbra

**Author's Note:**

> Huge shout out to [Typoshifter (Weezelness)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weezelness/pseuds/TypoShifter) for surviving my worse than usual tense issues.

“You know,” Shadow Weaver’s head rolls heavily, her neck bending at impossible angles before her gaze focuses laser tight, “they’ll never understand you. Not the way that I do.”

Catra watches the oily globs of black magic drip to the floor only to dissipate like mist, like shedding skin.

“Is that not love, in some way?” Shadow Weaver’s voice is hard as glass and twice as sharp.

No. But she can’t tell if Shadow Weaver actually believes that or is hoping to manipulate her. Instead of answering, she sits down on the other side of the bars, head tilting forward to show she is paying attention.

“How ungrateful you are.” Shadow Weaver’s sneer is cut short with a cough. Tentacles of blood bursting from her mouth and nose and eyes before slithering back. Up and up, retreating back inside. A few more drops of red fall with soothing little plinking sounds against the stone floor. 

She’d sworn to herself she wouldn’t speak, but Catra _had_ always been good at lying to herself. “I’m here aren’t I?”

Weaver laughs, triggering another coughing fit. For a moment the lights flicker and Catra’s heart skips a beat. She can’t breathe, she can’t breathe-until she can. The magic settles once more, the red current sparks away from her skin as it shrinks. It had only touched her as it follows a familiar line, a path of least resistance. The magical parasite writhing away just under Weaver’s skin causes ripples in her flesh with each shiver. It wants it’s host and not some magic-less bystander. Catra waits, doesn’t look away. 

Adora had tried to heal her again, the bright white and blue glow rendered useless against the parasite’s hunger. She’d sworn she would try, wouldn’t give up, and where was she now? Hiding from the truth of it, she had come down only one more time and had left in tears. Catra knew she didn’t have a leg to stand on, considering her own habit of pretending nothing was wrong, it stung all the same. 

Still did, always would.

Shadow Weaver smiles at her, as if she can hear Catra’s thoughts. Maybe she can. Black ichor dribbles out of the corner of her mouth as her shattered eyes soften. “Thank you child.”

There is a familiar dual thrill that runs up her spine, a flash of desire so deep as to drown and anger so bright that her ears ring. Still, she manages to find an equally sickly sweet smile to return, making sure her eyes crinkle and forces the right emotions into her voice. Soft and gentle and genuine. “You’re welcome.”  
  
Both guises fall at almost the same moment causing Catra to laugh. It was laugh or cry, and there was no way that she’d let this vile excuse of a person see her cry again. She keeps her eyes down until it passes, knowing if she doesn’t it will become hysterical. Watching the magic evaporate off the floor, she realizes the shadow cast by her old commander has too many limbs. Too many limbs and teeth that grin at her with a hiss and pop before vanishing. She keeps her eyes down as Shadow Weaver howls in renewed agony, the shadowy form twisting monstrously. Bigger yet smaller. Darker than the space between stars. A black hole that could pull them both under and through the floor. Red and white eyes stare at her wreathed in white flame from somewhere inside her own mind.

When the screaming dies to moans and rattling breaths, Catra looks up again.

The skin on Shadow Weaver’s face is half gone. Cutting a horrifyingly familiar diagonal across her face. Catra can feel her right arm itch as she looks into the bubbling darkness where muscle and bone should be.

“No gloating?” Weaver wheezes, a few more of her teeth falling out and turning to dust long before they hit the floor. “How unlike you.”

She shrugs, running her tongue along the roof of her mouth and over her gums before responding, “People change.”

Weaver scoffs, waxy blobs of her hair melt and drip onto her hands to be weakly flicked away like water. “People **never** change.”

She bobs her head slightly. Fair enough. “People’s _actions_ can change.”

The former sorceress stares into her eyes as her own begin to glow unnaturally. Not green, not anything, not a color in the end perhaps. Giving it too much thought was probably a one way ticket to insanity. She still matches the look and the challenge behind them.

“Perhaps.”

There is a wet slapping sound and Catra watches new parts of her fall apart, writhing shadows taking their place before slowly growing to devour more of its host. Reducing her from a person into something both more and less.

The silence is unbearable, but Shadow Weaver breaks first. “And Adora?”

Will that little burning coal of resentment never go out? As if this was some shocking question instead of well expected. _She’s the one that leaves, I always stay, I_ **_always_ ** _stay! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!_ Catra doesn’t voice her thoughts. “What do you think?”

Shadow Weaver scoffs and groans doubling over under Catra’s gaze; her body appearing to sink into the floor before Catra realizes her legs have probably been torn apart. Not much longer then.

“I was. Too soft.” Shadow Weaver hisses and growls as her remaining hand turns to stone and metal, then slag. “At least. She had. Yooooou totougggghhhhenherup.”

“Small mercy,” Catra whispers, watching as the magic begins to pulse. Twisting like a pit of snakes. Screaming like lightning and tasting like blood.

“Do not fail me,” a final command, demand, request, plea. Hard in all the wrong places and scared in others.

With the laziest smirk she can muster Catra leans back, she wants this to hurt. “When have I ever?”

Whatever final words Shadow Weaver may have had are swallowed by the screaming of dark magic. What looks almost like a portal opens under her, a thousand eyes turn on their prey as she is sucked in. There is no screaming or crying, no begging or pleading. 

Catra would give it to her, Shadow Weaver had gone out with at least some dignity.

She lets herself sit there, waiting until the last wisps of magic have curled away, and the scorched stone of the cell cool to the touch before standing. The door unlocks easily, opening silently with a gentle one fingered push. _Has it always been this quiet down here?_ The sound of her heart and stuttering breath seem far too loud. She pads over to the cracked mask, and even though she wants it...it takes time to psych herself up into touching the cursed thing. It’s smooth and ice cold to the touch, her hands stinging and numbing after holding it for a few minutes. Lifeless eyes stare up at her until she can’t stand their gaze any longer. She turns it over in her hands to see the side hidden away her whole life. The inside of the mask is plain wood, polished until it looks like glass. Catra lifts it up and holds it away from her face to look through the eyes. Nothing special. No filters or colors. Nothing to show what it had once been. Who it had once been.

She doesn’t remember leaving the makeshift containment cell, or walking up the staircase. There’s the vague impression of a guard. Catra’s sure she spoke to them, but can’t remember what was said, the memory dream like and soft around the edges. She comes back with two warm hands cradling her own. Glimmer’s eyes both hard and soft, a small smile in place when she realizes Catra can see her.

The queen’s fingers curve gently over hers, touching the edges of the mask but not pulling even as Catra clutches it like a lifeline.

“It’s okay.” Glimmer whispers, her voice soft and rasping and far, far away. Becoming more and more real the longer Catra stares at their hands. “You can let go.”

She doesn’t want to.

She needs to.

A pathetic whine is wrenched from her throat as her gaze becomes blurry. 

“It’s okay.”

It isn’t. It really, really isn’t. 

She takes one shaking breath and another, swallowing thickly past the tears as she nods. _Let go, let go, let go, let goletgoletgoletgoletgoletgo_ \- Her fingers ache as she forces them open. Knuckles popping from how tight her grip had been.

Glimmer gingerly tugs until the mask was in her hands instead.

 _I’m going to die._ She can’t breathe, and her chest hurts, and her head is throbbing. The ringing is back, and she suddenly realizes she’s trembling. Shivering and shaking hard enough to hurt.

“No! Catra, no, it shouldn’t! You are not Shadow Weaver, please don’t say that.” Glimmer’s voice is hoarse with unshed tears, finger tips grazing just above her elbows unsure if touch is welcome or not.

Catra shakes harder. She must have said something. What, what did she say? “Fuck.” She’s never sounded so weak in her life. Rage sweeps through her in a single heartbeat, loud and red and black black black until it’s bright white. Then gone. “Fuck.”

Glimmer bites her lip, gently stroking Catra’s arms now. She’s barely opened her mouth, but Catra’s stomach twists dangerously, knowing what she is going to ask. “Do you want to be with-”

“No.” The growl comes from deep in her chest, thick enough to nearly choke her. She can’t be trusted right now. She shouldn’t ever _be_ trusted, but right now ** she can not ** **be trusted** **alone with** ** _her_** .

“Okay. What do you want, what can I do?” Glimmer immediately sighs, eyes closing in pain before looking at her again. “That was a really stupid question. Let’s get you somewhere else. My room or yours?”

 _Don’tleavemepleaseIcan’tpleasedon’tpleasedon’tgoIcan’t_ \- “Yours. Closer.”

They walk silently. Side by side with one of Glimmer’s arms wrapped around her waist. It isn’t far, and that’s the point, but when the doors close behind them it feels like it’s taken years. The world rocks and bounces like she’s walking on soap bubbles. The floor feels squishy and unstable, slick and cold beneath her feet. It feels like she could bounce and float if she tries hard enough. The image of how spongy the floor that touched Weaver’s body was races through her mind, and Catra has almost made it to the couch before she collapses to the floor. Glimmer catches her, twisting so that Catra’s face is pressed into her thigh instead of the floor when they land. 

She never thought memories of Prime’s ship would be soothing. But this is like that. All the times they held each other over there. It’s exactly what she needs.

So Catra turns and buries herself into Glimmer’s stomach, curling legs around her hips. Her arms are trapped between them but she can’t bring herself to care. She lets Glimmer pet her hair and scratch her neck and ears. Lets herself go molecule by molecule into a nothingness. Till there’s nothing of her but a faint thought in the darkness.

If Adora is the sun, then Shadow Weaver was the moons forcing a permanent eclipse. Catra doesn't exist, never has. She doesn’t exist because she doesn’t belong. She’s not the planet or the sun or the moons. It’s like she’s caught in the space between them, frozen and choking in the leftover darkness. Not even good enough to be the nothing between the stars. Moons shadows but only in the most peripheral of ways. Maybe she just wishes she was important enough to be that. No, she wishes she could literally be a moon shadow.

That little space of near darkness appearing and leaving just as quickly. A passing moment. Intangible.

She’s not though, she’s a physical creature of some kind. In some manner. So she is forced to return.

It’s the tip of her tail tapping sluggishly against the floor that brings her back to Etheria. Like shaking out cobwebs from her brain to get all her little shards of herself in roughly the right places. Catra has to admit, she didn’t think they’d actually still be on the floor when the couch and bed are right there and Glimmer has a full charge. She’s glad though. It’s nice to be on the ground. Solid and cold and pushing against her hip and elbow painfully. Breathing is easier like this, even if it makes her head shoot lightning down her spine. 

“Hey,” Glimmer whispers, tired looking but trying to smile all the same.

Catra just pushes in tighter. Like she can force their bodies together and get lost between them.

“That’s fair,” Glimmer chuckles, one leg shaking and the other twitching involuntarily. How long have they been here?

Catra swallows and forces her tongue to unstick, “Are your legs gonna fall off?” Because despite everything that’s happened, she somehow still cares.

Glimmer pretends to thinks about it, head tilting up slightly as she taps one finger at her chin.

“You’re an asshole,” She growls, fighting her body to sit up under its own power. It takes a minute of struggling to get there, and then she can’t help but slump forward. The puppet master is gone and her strings have all been cut.

Glimmer doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t move. So neither does Catra, then again she’s found the mask again and is staring. Glimmer had dropped it when they got in, probably when she made sure Catra wouldn’t crack her skill open. Her skin crawls as she looks at the circles and ovals, white and red and black. She wants it back. Not now. At some point. She might actually kill Adora this time if she tries to take it. _Weaver would have been so proud._

“I’m tired.”

Glimmer stands slowly, stretching before pulling Catra up on unsteady feet. They make the last few steps to the couch, and collapse once more. Catra curls on top of Glimmer, cheek propped on her arm and facing out towards the room. Glimmer rests her hands so they barely touch her, one at her shin and the other her back.

“If my whole body starts to get paralyzed because of your sharp little paws, I will throw you on the ground.” Glimmer grumbles. “How can you be so little and feel this heavy?”

She snorts, digging her chin in for extra purchase until she can almost hear Glimmer’s teeth grind. “I’ll have you know that I am a delight.”

“Shut up and get some sleep. Grumpy flea bag.” For as harsh as the words might have been, Glimmer’s gentle tone takes all the power out of them.

Catra can feel herself fall into her body, and she paws at her face until her half mask clatters to the floor. Without it in the way, she shifts to nuzzle under Glimmer’s chin; nose buried in her throat until she starts to weakly purr. It isn’t forced, it just isn’t happy. All the same Glimmer’s arms move to touch her a little more firmly.

“Sleep,” she mumbles.

Catra finds she doesn’t want to fight. So she slips under. She’ll face it tomorrow.


End file.
